The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-03-29
A NERVOUS MANS VAIL.
PEOPLE WHO THOUGHTIeSSlY SET
OTHER FOLKS NERVES ON EDGE.

The Aggravating Habits To which some
Biting the NaiIs-..The Devir, Tattoo"
Boy and blackboard.
The other day / called ON a gentleman
for whom i have the highest regard. AMI
who has on several occasions proved 10
me that he il one of natures noblcmen:
man who never by any means lets ms lclt
hand know what his right is doing, and
whose right hand is continually doing
good, and yet before | left him | could
have taken both his right and left hands
and cheerfully chopped them of, and this
is why: During the entire interview his
good right hand kept cracking the FONTS
of the fingers of his equally good left
hand and vice versa. Now, If there II one
thing more than another that puts my
nerves on edge and makes my blood run
cold il Is to have a man sit alongside OF
me and crack his fingers. and consequently
during that whole interview was in con
tinual struggle between my desire To
listen to nv good friends talk and my
other desire to strangle him. Yet he,
good easy soul. knew nothing of this, and
went on chatting and cracking. utterly
unconscious of the suppressed volcano that
threatened every moment TO burst and
overwhelm him.
AN AGGRAVATING HABIT.
Now, don't believe am any more nerv-
Gus than the rest of my kind, and yet,
after ! left my friend. | thought of so
many petty annoyances like this that dis
turb my peace that fairly wonder that
have lived as long as have without hay
ing murdered somebody. For instance, l
know u man whose life must be in danger
all the time because of an aggraNatjEg
habit he has of biting his nails. When
ever he talks To me and begins to chew
his fingers | have to turn my head away,
because while | look at him ] feel rs
though IL is my nails he is biting and n
sensation goes through me "a though
every bite he took pulled ont my nerves
with it, Then there j. another dear friend
of mine who often drops into my office for
IL chat, and who invariably sits down ut
my desk and begins To beat the devil >
tattoo" on it. stand il for while until
! unconsciouSly join him in the tiendish
music, and then away we 90 with our
dreary rub-a-d until everybody in the
room rises in revolt and demands an in
slant cessation of the awful noise
How many men there are who cannot
talk with you without having hold of you.
They generally prefer button on your
coat if there is none handy then the
lapel will do. They will pull and haul at
you until your only hope lies in the hon
esty of your tailor, and you almost wish
that he had put in some bad stitches, SO
that something will give way and you can
make your escape from the bore. Not
long ago somebody gave me little silver
pencil, which | in my pride hung ON my
watch chain. And then my trouble began.
Two out of every three persons | met
grabbed that pencil and played with il,
pulling IL out and shutting IL and demand
ing to know what it was for and how
got 1t, etc In about two weeks IT was en-
tirely worn out and perfectly useless.
have since been thinking seriously of get
ting some sort of n pocket electric battery,
and whenever any of my friends begin to
daily with the watch charm turn ON the
current and let him have il just to- show
him that his fingers are where they should
not be. Some people, | suppose, would
think l was wrong in doing this, but let
them mount pencil like did and I'll
guarantee that they will cheerfully adopt
the electric battery cure.
TwIRLING HIS THUMBS.
Among the other things that make my
life miserable hold chief the man who
sits opposite me in the street ears and con
tinually twirls his thumbs. | cannot help
watching him; and | remember one day
how | astonshed one gentleman who had
been twirling away for half an hour by
leaning across the car and asking him ~
n personal favor to reverse the motion, aS
l could not stand the way they We're turn
ing any longer. He looked at me as though
/ was little bit crazy and put his hands
in his pockets, Have you ever sat in II
room where silence was only broken by
the scratch of "a bad pen in somebody's
hands, Nice, is it not?
l knew n newspaper man whose little
boy is the proud possessor of n black
board and takes great deal of pleasure
in writing ON it with chalk. Now, that
journalist loves his son, and yet he says
that whenever that boy, that chalk and
that blackboard come into contact the
sound produced is simply maddening, and
he has either to put an end to ii at once
or incontinently flee the room in order To
save his mind from utter destruction
Everybody has experienced the fendish
snOrer, but as most everybody shores
anyway there Is always u chance of get
ting even with somebody, even if it's only
the wife of your bosom. There are some
persons in this world who, but for a bad
habit they have of filling their sentences
with ''dy' sees' asking the utterly
idiotic question. is that sou might he
worthy citizens of the community. 1
don't know many things more aggravat-
ing than To have u man say by see"
with every other word he utters or reply
10 everything tell him with an utterly
fatuous is that sO>'-''Observer" in
Philadelphia Call.